turn, and what you have to go through in order to get where you want to be.
Employees are, of course, also an important aspect of DNA creation, but they also have to be controlled. That means they must have the appropriate skills and a great attitude, be adaptable to change, and be willing and able to work within the guidelines you establish. If, for example, you want your customers to feel that your organization is a professional one that they can trust, your staff must present themselves accordingly. If your company sold medical equipment and a customer came into your business and was greeted by an unshaven, 60-year-old man dressed in leather and covered with tattoos, the customer would not in all likelihood be favorably impressed. The important thing to remember is, where DNA creation and employees are concerned, the tail canât wag the dog. That is, how your company operates must be your decision, not your employeesâ. Creating a companyâs DNA is hard; enforcing it is even harder. But if long-term success is your goal, you really donât have any choice.
Marketing and the Customer at Level 2
Nothing happens without the customer. And customers wonât know that your companyâor the products or services you provideâexists without marketing. This is one of those business laws that you just canât ignore, and one that, fortunately, most people know. What you may not realize, though, is that your companyâs DNA has a very considerable influence on how your company markets and delivers its products or services. What that means in practice is that the kind of message delivered through your marketing should reflect the ethics and professionalism of your company.
Virtually everyone expects politicians to make promises and then not deliver on themâitâs part of the game. But it doesnât work with customers. If you make a promise to a customer and donât deliver on it, he or she is very unlikely to come back. And because of this, itâs essential for your companyâs DNA be a reflection of your marketing. That is, if the message your marketing sends to your customers makes a promise, you must develop your DNA to make sure both your products and services deliver on that promise. This is an important point that can easily be forgotten in the busy day-to-day operation of a business. You might be able to realize some short-term gains by making promises you canât back up, but itâs one thing to attract a customer and quite another to bring a dissatisfied customer back to your business. And having a clearly stated DNA makes it easier to keep your marketing from making exaggerated or misleading claims that can get you in trouble with your customers.
Marketing and customers go hand in hand, but the overall purpose of attracting customers is to get them to buy from you, then come back and buy again, and then tell their friends and relatives what a great business you have. Most customers are decent, law-abiding, moral people, and if you want to attract and keep the majority of them, your business has to operate in accordance with their values. What this means is that everything about the way your business is run has to reflect those values, including how honest your advertising is, how a customer is greeted, how well employees are trained to respond to customersâ requests or questions, and literally hundreds of other aspects of your operation.
Creating your companyâs DNA begins at Level 2 but is actually an ongoing activity. Because the market and your customers are always changing, as your company moves through its life cycle you will have to periodically come back to Level 2 to create or recreate processes that reflect those changes. Thatâs one of the reasons itâs so important for you to think through and develop the kind of processes that your company will need to operate successfully at Levels 3, 4, and 5.
Level 3: From Survival to Success
The
Employees are, of course, also an important aspect of DNA creation, but they also have to be controlled. That means they must have the appropriate skills and a great attitude, be adaptable to change, and be willing and able to work within the guidelines you establish. If, for example, you want your customers to feel that your organization is a professional one that they can trust, your staff must present themselves accordingly. If your company sold medical equipment and a customer came into your business and was greeted by an unshaven, 60-year-old man dressed in leather and covered with tattoos, the customer would not in all likelihood be favorably impressed. The important thing to remember is, where DNA creation and employees are concerned, the tail canât wag the dog. That is, how your company operates must be your decision, not your employeesâ. Creating a companyâs DNA is hard; enforcing it is even harder. But if long-term success is your goal, you really donât have any choice.
Marketing and the Customer at Level 2
Nothing happens without the customer. And customers wonât know that your companyâor the products or services you provideâexists without marketing. This is one of those business laws that you just canât ignore, and one that, fortunately, most people know. What you may not realize, though, is that your companyâs DNA has a very considerable influence on how your company markets and delivers its products or services. What that means in practice is that the kind of message delivered through your marketing should reflect the ethics and professionalism of your company.
Virtually everyone expects politicians to make promises and then not deliver on themâitâs part of the game. But it doesnât work with customers. If you make a promise to a customer and donât deliver on it, he or she is very unlikely to come back. And because of this, itâs essential for your companyâs DNA be a reflection of your marketing. That is, if the message your marketing sends to your customers makes a promise, you must develop your DNA to make sure both your products and services deliver on that promise. This is an important point that can easily be forgotten in the busy day-to-day operation of a business. You might be able to realize some short-term gains by making promises you canât back up, but itâs one thing to attract a customer and quite another to bring a dissatisfied customer back to your business. And having a clearly stated DNA makes it easier to keep your marketing from making exaggerated or misleading claims that can get you in trouble with your customers.
Marketing and customers go hand in hand, but the overall purpose of attracting customers is to get them to buy from you, then come back and buy again, and then tell their friends and relatives what a great business you have. Most customers are decent, law-abiding, moral people, and if you want to attract and keep the majority of them, your business has to operate in accordance with their values. What this means is that everything about the way your business is run has to reflect those values, including how honest your advertising is, how a customer is greeted, how well employees are trained to respond to customersâ requests or questions, and literally hundreds of other aspects of your operation.
Creating your companyâs DNA begins at Level 2 but is actually an ongoing activity. Because the market and your customers are always changing, as your company moves through its life cycle you will have to periodically come back to Level 2 to create or recreate processes that reflect those changes. Thatâs one of the reasons itâs so important for you to think through and develop the kind of processes that your company will need to operate successfully at Levels 3, 4, and 5.
Level 3: From Survival to Success
The
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